Understanding the balance of experienced teachers' ICT learning

In the Information Age, ICT learning requires a balance between the concrete and experiential learning process and the abstract conceptualisation of Andragogy. Future Teacher Professional Development will need to understand the complexities of the concrete experience and the abstract conceptualisation of new knowledge. Professional Development will need to comprehend how experienced teachers as digital immigrants learn. It will further need to understand what abilities are essential for these experienced teachers and how they develop an awareness of their ICT learning. This paper will examine a study that was undertaken with a group of Post Registration Primary School Educators. These experienced teachers undertook the Post Registration or fourth year of their Bachelor of Education (Primary) course at an Australian Educational Institute. These experienced teachers with limited ICT exposure went through an ICT learning process over a period of one year. They finally acquired the ICT knowledge and skills, however within the time span of one year, theoretical pedagogy was absent or minimal.

How do Digital Immigrant Teachers (DITs) learn ICT for the information age?

This study reports about teacher learning and in particular, teachers who have extensive teaching experience but limited ICT knowledge and skills. The Digital Immigrant Teachers (DITs) grew up before digital technologies; they are not frequently confident or comfortable with ICT. Like all immigrants, they have to learn new and creative ways to enhance their survival in the third millennium, where the acceleration of knowledge has allowed communication and application of information to be rapidly disseminated. In order to fully participate in the technologically rich society DITs must actively engage in the construction of authentic and purposeful learning. This research came about as a result of the digital immigrants' struggles to construct and acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to teach in the Knowledge Economy and the Information Age. The experienced present day teachers, as digital immigrants are trying to teach digital natives (Prensky, 2001 & 2003). And in order to assist these teachers in their learning ICT struggle, it is imperative to understand the teacher learning process, and the learning style through which they acquire the knowledge and skills for this new milieu.

Valuing practice over theory : how beginning teachers re-orient their practice in the transition from the university to the workplace

This paper is about the experiences of beginning teachers in turning theory learned in universities into practice in the workplace. The research is situated in the context of a preservice teacher education program that explicitly and deliberately seeks to bridge the theory-practice gap in teacher education. The paper argues that, despite long-standing awareness of the theory-practice gap as a central issue faced by beginning teachers, attempts by teacher educators to address this issue remain thwarted. The argument draws on interview and focus group data collected via a study of 1st year graduate teachers of an Australian preservice teacher education program. The theoretical perspective of symbolic interactionism is used to focus on the meanings that graduates have of their experiences of turning theory into practice. The data suggest that prospective teachers during preservice training value both the theory that they learn on campus and the practice that they observe in schools. However, once they become practitioners, they privilege the latter. Upon entry to the workplace, graduates come to associate good practice with that of the veteran teacher, whose practice and cache of resources they seek to emulate. The paper concludes that background knowledge and occupational socialization remain key influences on teacher development and continue to play a key role in ensuring the continued transmittal of the cultural heritage. In particular, it proposes the need for innovative disruptions to the conventional model of teacher education.

Opportunities to promote mathematical content knowledge for primary teaching

Understanding the development of pre-service teachers’ mathematical content knowledge (MCK) is important for improving primary mathematics’ teacher education. This paper reports on a case study, Rose , and her opportunities to develop MCK during the four years of her program. Program opportunities to promote MCK when planning and practicing primary teaching included: coursework experiences and responding to assessment requirements. Discussion includes the Knowledge Quartet: foundation knowledge, transformation, connection and contingency. By fourth-year, Rose demonstrated development of different categories of MCK when practicing her teaching because of her program experiences.

Distinguishing between mathematics classrooms in Australia, China, Japan, Korea and the USA through the lens of the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation : public oral interactivity and mathematical orality

The research reported in this paper examined spoken mathematics in particular well-taught classrooms in Australia, China (both Shanghai and Hong Kong), Japan, Korea and the USA from the perspective of the distribution of responsibility for knowledge generation in order to identify similarities and differences in classroom practice and the implicit pedagogical principles that underlie those practices. The methodology of the Learner’s Perspective Study (LPS) documented the voicing of mathematical ideas in public discussion and in teacher-student conversations and the relative priority accorded by different teachers to student oral contributions to classroom activity. Significant differences were identified among the classrooms studied, challenging simplistic characterisations of ‘the Asian classroom’ as enacting a single pedagogy, and suggesting that, irrespective of cultural similarities, local pedagogies reflect very different assumptions about learning and instruction. We have employed spoken mathematical terms as a form of surrogate variable, possibly indicative of the location of the agency for knowledge generation in the various classrooms studied (but also of interest in itself). The analysis distinguished one classroom from another on the basis of “public oral interactivity” (the number of utterances in whole class and teacher-student interactions in each lesson) and “mathematical orality” (the frequency of occurrence of key mathematical terms in each lesson). Classrooms characterized by high public oral interactivity were not necessarily sites of high mathematical orality. In particular, the results suggest that one characteristic that might be identified with a national norm of practice could be the level of mathematical orality: relatively high mathematical orality characterising the mathematics classes in Shanghai with some consistency, while lessons in Seoul and Hong Kong consistently involved much less frequent spoken mathematical terms. The relative contributions of teacher and students to this spoken mathematics provided an indication of how the responsibility for knowledge generation was shared between teacher and student in those classrooms. Specific analysis of the patterns of interaction by which key mathematical terms were introduced or solicited revealed significant differences. It is suggested that the empirical investigation of mathematical orality and its likely connection to the distribution of the responsibility for knowledge generation are central to the development of any theory of mathematics instruction.

Australian primary pre-service teachers’ conceptions of geography

This article reports on the results of a survey of Australian primary pre-service teachers’ experiences, conceptions and perceptions of geography. Research was conducted with two cohorts of undergraduate primary pre-service teachers; one group in second year and another in the final year of a four-year teacher education course. The findings show congruence with similar studies conducted in the UK and indicate that pre-service teachers had a very narrow conception of geography and geography education; a conception that was information-oriented and focused on broad knowledge about the world and locational knowledge and skills. The article concludes by exploring some of the implications for the implementation of the new national geography curriculum in Australia and for primary pre-service geography teacher education more broadly.

Islam's Modern Day Ibn Battutas: Gülen teachers journeying towards the divine

There is a longstanding debate on whether Muslims can be modern. Some argue that they can only be so if they forsake their traditions and embrace rationalism. In this article I argue that the Gülen Movement, a transnational Turkish Muslim educational activist network has found a middle ground by blending religious traditions with modern day realities. Drawing on interviews from the movement's teachers and graduates of its schools, from Turkey, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, I explore, through the prism of al-riḥla fī ṭalab al-ʿilm (travel in search of knowledge), their maintenance of the longstanding Islamic ritual of travel as a means of excelling both professionally and religiously. In turn, I demonstrate how the movement, on a number of levels, effectively reconciles the spiritual and the everyday through updating Islamic practices to better integrate themselves and other Muslims into a globalised world.

Innovation showcase : Performing beginning teachers' 'firsts'

Teacher identity work emphasises it is important beginning teachers understand their professional identity as something shifting, fluid and emerging – not fixed. These and other water metaphors – such as ‘washout’, ‘sink or swim’, and ‘thrown in the deep end’ – are often used to describe beginning teachers’ experiences. Such words and metaphors portray the fluid and unpredictable nature of identity transformation, while also highlighting that beginning teachers in particular find this transformation difficult, resulting in high levels of teacher attrition in the early years.Throughout 2011 twelve beginning teachers shared their experiences of identity transformation in semi-structured interviews with the researcher. Their interview data was analysed and scripted into an ethnographic performance, examining how ‘first’ experiences shape teachers’ future practice and identity. This presentation includes excerpts from the performance ‘The First Time’, and expands on the methodological approaches taken to generate data and knowledge that reflects the fluid and unpredictable nature of teachers’ identity. This eclectic approach combined an understanding of the self (Mead, 1934) with non-naturalistic theatrical conventions used to form the data into an ethnographic performance. The research is framed within a practice theory approach (Schatzki, 2001) with a focus on practices situated within a particular time and place.The research findings focus on the importance of developing creativity and flexibility as key beginning teacher attributes in order to ‘swim with the current’, and to counter the negative preconceptions beginning teachers are told to expect as rites of passage upon entering the profession. The outcomes of my research have implications for teacher educators and in-service teachers in assisting beginning teachers to negotiate the waters of an ever-changing profession.

Constructing knowledge

The most popular model of how students learn is known as the constructivist model of learning. There are variants of this model, but the main features are that learning occurs in the context of pre-existing experiences and ideas, that new concepts are transformed to fit or build on those existing ideas, and that learning occurs in a social or cultural context. Learners are not empty vessels, into which new knowledge can be injected. New concepts, which are consistent with and extend pre-existing experiences and ideas, are easily and effectively assimilated. Learning is difficult, when learners have pre-existing incorrect ideas or alternative conceptions, as they must first unlearn the misconceptions in order to incorporate the new information. In a different context, it is usually much harder and more expensive to retrofit an existing house than to build from scratch. Similarly, it is very hard to overcome bad habits. A previous column in Chemistry in Australia [July 2013, page 35], noted that we simplify ideas when teaching chemistry to younger students, but warned that over-simplication often results in misconceptions that will hinder future learning. Most chemistry educators favour constructivism, because there are similarities with the process of discovery in science. Firstly, the advancement of scientific knowledge builds on past experiences and knowledge: Isaac Newton famously acknowledged, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”. Secondly, observations and data of themselves are not meaningful, until that information has been transformed to extend existing ideas: Nobel Laureate Lawrence Bragg wrote, “the important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them”. Science as a Human Endeavour (SHE) is one of the strands in the Australian Curriculum. Similarly, one of the learning outcomes in the Draft Chemistry Academic Standards is that graduates will be able to recognise the creative endeavour involved in the acquiring knowledge and to recognise the testable and contestable nature of chemistry. Science is practiced individually and collectively by people. Human beings, who have human virtues and fallibilities, are responsible for scientific advancements. New knowledge is constructed in the minds of learners and scientists. Just as discussions in work teams, workshops, conferences, and the scientific literature, help scientists to extend and improve scientific understanding, the important role of teachers is to guide students to refine, alter and improve their scientific understanding when extending their scientific boundaries.

Assessment policies, curricular directives, and teacher agency: quandaries of EFL teachers in Inner Mongolia

In the debate over English language teaching approaches and methods, the influence of examinations on classroom pedagogy and the nature of these examinations are critical considerations for teachers. In the Inner Mongolian context, as for all China, examinations reflect traditional conceptions of teaching and learning, classroom teaching conditions such as class sizes, and the English-as-a-foreign language setting. In this situation, decisions about classroom pedagogy and objectives and whether teaching focuses on test-taking rather than on the learning of language go to the core of teacher agency. In this paper we foreground the struggles and dilemmas experienced by English language teachers in Inner Mongolia in attempts to exercise agency amidst the instructional demands of an exam-oriented community, and a misalignment created by an exam remaining centered on discrete skills rather than students' proficiency in applying ranging uses of the language they are learning. These conditions are now located within New English Syllabus expectations are that teachers will implement their knowledge of educational theories and of current English teaching methodology to create opportunities for more broadly based learning and proficiency. © 2014 © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

A framework for primary teachers’ perceptions of mathematical reasoning

Mathematical reasoning has been emphasised as one of the key proficiencies for mathematics in the Australian curriculum since 2011 and in the Canadian curriculum since 2007. This study explores primary teachers’ perceptions of mathematical reasoning at a time of further curriculum change. Twenty-four primary teachers from Canada and Australia were interviewed after engagement in the first stage of the Mathematical Reasoning Professional Learning Program incorporating demonstration lessons focused on reasoning conducted in their schools. Phenomenographic analysis of interview transcripts exploring variation in the perceptions of mathematical reasoning held by these teachers revealed seven categories of description based on four dimensions of variation. The categories delineate the different perceptions of mathematical reasoning expressed by the participants of this study. The resulting outcome space establishes a framework that facilitates tracking of growth in primary teachers’ awareness of aspects of mathematical reasoning.

Student knowledge: curriculum, assessment and reporting

At a time when national and international high-stakes testing has assumed such prominence, one might begin to wonder about the status of teacher judgement when assessing and reporting on children’s knowledge and skills against the descriptors specified in curriculum standards. Were standardised test results congruent with the judgements that teachers make when reporting on students’ achievement, concern about how one type of judgement might compare with another would perhaps be unwarranted. This article draws on research that has investigated whether standardised assessments in the state of Victoria, Australia are actually comparable with teacher’s judgements about their students’ work to illustrate that discrepancies do exist. These results have been interpreted within an analytical framework that derives from Aristotle’s (350BC/2000) distinction between three types of knowledge, namely epistemic, technical and phronetic knowledge.

The development of knowledge about language in teacher training: what works?

Efforts have been made over many years by applied linguists in a number of English-speaking countries to raise awareness of language across the primary and secondary school curriculum, with varying degrees of success (see Denham & Lobeck, 2010). Many of these countries are sites of mass migration from non-English speaking countries, creating linguistic equity issues. In Australia, the new National Curriculum mandates that teachers of all disciplines will be required to provide pedagogy responsive to the language learning needs of English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. However, policy documents do not specify how this goal should be realized, and teachers and researchers are engaged in constant debate about what views of language could inform teacher training (e.g. structural and/or functional). This paper reports on a project which aimed to identify 1) the views of teacher educators on language in the curriculum, and 2) the language-related challenges faced by teachers in training. The current paper focuses on the language awareness of trainee teachers. Ten education students were interviewed about their understandings and experiences of language and language learning. It was found that many students experienced lack of confidence and knowledge about language (KAL), but that awareness of sociocultural elements of language provided them with ways to connect with a broader understanding of language issues. Results were analyzed from the perspective of sociocultural theory and will have implications for teacher training in any educational context where students are learning an additional language in order to integrate into a national schooling system.

Teacher knowledge, child interest and parent expectation: Factors influencing multicultural programs in an early childhood setting

© 2015, Early Childhood Australia Inc. All rights reserved. MULTICULTURAL CURRICULA/PROGRAMS assume an important role within a cultural approach to learning and teaching in early childhood education in New Zealand. Te Whariki, the national early childhood curriculum framework of New Zealand, is an emancipatory and socially constructive document that emphasises equity, social justice and the important position of culture in children's learning and development. In practice this means developing early childhood programs that are sensitive and responsive to the needs and interests of children and families of minority cultures. Drawing on a critical social constructivist framework, this study of one early childhood centre in New Zealand identifies the features of its multicultural curriculum. The paper argues that a devotion to supporting children of minority cultures has persisted in the curriculum, but there is a reliance on mainstream pedagogy focused on children's learning within the centre environment and teachers' subjective knowledge about children's needs.

Expert teachers’ discursive moves in science classroom interactive talk

It is well established that teacher-student interactive talk is critically important in supporting students to reason and learn in science. Teachers’ discursive moves in responding to student input are keys to developing and supporting a rich vein of interactive discussion. While initiation-response-evaluation (IRE) sequences have been shown to dominate science classroom discourse patterns worldwide, teacher ‘prompts’ are important for opening up opportunities for reasoning and higher level learning. This paper describes the analysis of video sequences for five expert elementary teachers across three countries to develop a coding scheme for these teachers’ ‘discursive moves’ to guide and respond to student inputs, that unpacks more completely the strategies they use to develop interactive discussion. The analysis showed varied patterns of knowledge transaction, with teacher discursive moves serving three broad purposes: to elicit and acknowledge student responses, to clarify and to extend student ideas. The patterns of talk were also related to the dialogic-authoritative distinction in analysis of talk, to show that this distinction is only clear for particular types of expert practice. While the particular moves teachers use vary across parts of lessons we argue that they are revealing of teachers’ particular beliefs and of systemic constraints, and that there exist patterns in the use of the discursive categories that capture how expert teachers build deeper level knowledge in classroom interactive talk. We describe ways in which the analysis can inform science teacher education and the professional learning of teachers of science.